


loaded words and loaded friends are loaded guns to our heads

by kybcr



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: ...ish, ...sort of?, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attempted Murder, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Family Issues, Gun Violence, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, again there's no real 'violence' but its just riko being dramatic as fuck, its more like suicidal ideation tbh, not really but there's no tag for 'half-assed murder suicide talk'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 02:24:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21438646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kybcr/pseuds/kybcr
Summary: in which ichirou hands riko a gun.
Relationships: Kevin Day/Riko Moriyama
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	loaded words and loaded friends are loaded guns to our heads

**Author's Note:**

> this is... very dark, i wrote it after watching joker because i just had. a lot of Feelings. there's uh suicidal ideation, a half-assed murder-suicide attempt involving a gun. i think this is compliant with nevermore canon.

Riko bows stiffly, then manages to grind out through gritted teeth,<Thank you for your time.> 

<Of course,> returns Ichirou. The sound his polished shoes make sound like a full stop. Riko gets up, about to exhale the breath he's been holding, but notices something on the glass coffee table and nearly yelps in surprise.

"Wait- " Riko almost begins in English, then switches to Japanese. <Sir?>

Ichirou stops right before the door closes, and there it is again— that suffocating feeling Riko gets when he looks at him, like looking into a distorted mirror at a carnival.

"Onii-san," corrects Ichirou.

<Brother,> repeats Riko. <I think— pardon me, but I think you left your gun.> 

Ichirou turns around to look at where Riko is staring and says, "Ah, my mistake," cordially, in English, in that sort of way that makes Riko certain it was not a mistake.

"Actually," he adds, "Now that you work for me, I think... yes, why not. The yakuza is a dangerous affiliation to have, though I'm certain you know how to keep yourself safe— I think Uncle said you're good with knives-"

Riko feels his heart sinking into the pit of his stomach. _He knows... he knows... what?_

"-keep the gun."

"Onii-san," says Riko, uncertain.

"Yes?"

"I-"

_-am not supposed to have a gun._

"-am thankful," he says instead. "But I don't think-"

"Consider it a gift," suggests Ichirou. "Your birthday is next week, isn't it? I couldn't hope to ever make up for twenty years of missed birthday gifts, but perhaps I'll start with this."

<Thank you,> says Riko with another deep bow, very quickly, to hide the shake in his voice. Ichirou only gives him another once-over glance, the one that makes him feel like walking through a security scanner at the airport.

(Riko gets nervous walking through them, like there's a bomb buried in his chest somewhere. Though he's sure he always packs his knives in his check-in luggage.)

Ichirou makes a small noise that could be a laugh before stepping out of Riko's dorm. The door slamming shut behind Ichirou makes a sound like a gunshot.

_I think Uncle said you're good with knives-_

So Ichirou knows, then, that... what?

(He must know Riko has to have some way of keeping his Ravens in line, but then when the Master had handed him over to Ichirou would he have told him—?)

Riko makes his way to the coffee table, despite himself, and reaches down to pick up the gun, but stops with his fingers hovering an inch over the sleek black handle.

(No... probably not. If Ichirou had known what he'd signed up for he wouldn't have agreed to take Riko in the first place. Wouldn't it be just like the Master, to dump Riko off without telling his new owner that he was damaged goods, just so it wouldn't be his problem to clean up when Riko ultimately, inevitably self-destructed and took out a fifty-square mile crater with him?)

Riko picks up the gun, wincing at the clatter it makes against the glass table. The metal is surprisingly cold against his skin; he weighs it in his hand, heavy as a heart.

_This does not belong in my hand,_ he thinks.

(The one and only time Riko had ever been near a gun was when Ichirou had shot him in the head after the championship match. He hadn't even seen or heard it, in his drug-addled haze.)

Instinctively Riko reaches up with his left hand to the bandage on his head, then slips his fingers under the gauze. His reflection in the glass table stares at him.

_(Stop that, _Kevin would say, probably. _If you pick at the scabs it'll scar._)

Which is funny. Downright hilarious, actually, because what's another scar to Riko, who's pretty much a walking collection of scars and other oddities held together by needle and thread and prayers? The surgeon's stitching was far neater than Kevin's was on his arms, but Riko picked at them every moment he could because, well, because-

("The thread is green," mumbled Riko. "I- I don't know... you always used blue..."

"You," declared Kevin, knotting a fresh piece of gauze tight around his head, "are a goddamn child, you know that?")

Despite himself Riko feels his fingers digging into the scab, hard, pressing his nails into flesh till tears cloud his vision and the reflection in the glass blurs.

("The doctors said the bullet shattered your skull but missed your brain," explained Kevin when Riko had woken up and nearly knocked himself out again pulling on the tubes hooked up to him. "They had to do surgery to get bone fragments out."

"He must be a pretty fucking awful yakuza boss," said Riko, suddenly, a day after he had been discharged, "If he couldn't even successfully kill me with a gun at point blank range.")

Riko curls his fingers around the gun, imagining Ichirou's hands around it. He hadn't seen Ichirou pull out the gun before he'd shot him, so he couldn't be sure if it had been this one... but he might remember the sound of it... if he tested it out, just to see what it sounds like—

Hands curiously steady, Riko raises the gun to the table, points it at his reflection, who watches him warily.

_If I shoot that, would I shatter as well?_

A loud noise startles Riko and he wonders if he accidentally fired the gun, but it's only Kevin opening the door.

"Riko?"

Kevin slides onto the couch next to him, casual, like Riko's holding a napkin and not a gun. He looks at it carefully, then looks back at Riko quizzically.

"Ichirou gave it to me," Riko murmurs, by way of explanation.

"Is it..."

_Loaded? Good question._

"...the one he shot you with?"

_Huh. _

"I'm not sure," admits Riko. He turns it a few times in his hands, shaking it and deciding it must be loaded.

"What was he doing here?"

"He wants... he said something must want me alive, the... universe, or... yeah, if the bullet didn't kill me. So he's- ugh, _fuck," _curses Riko, trying to force the words out in the right order. "He's leaving me alive."

"You think? Some God or fate saved you?" wonders Kevin.

"I think he's just fucking awful at aiming. Even I could have done better. And I've never even used a gun."

Both of them look down at the gun. Riko's fingers move without thinking, finding a switch he assumes is the safety and clicking it off.

"It would be so easy," Riko says finally, "to finish the job, wouldn't it?"

And while that he's sure Kevin is watching, he lifts the gun, shifting his grip till it feels right. Raises it to his temple, right over the bandage, exactly where the first bullet went through. Riko stares down at his reflection, at the boy holding a gun to his own head. It doesn't look like Riko.

"You made me a promise," Kevin reminds him.

"Yeah, and I could break it."

"Do you want to?"

"What, shoot myself? Every fucking day-"

"Let me down?" interrupts Kevin. "Pretty damn selfish of you, wouldn't it be?"

Something wet rolls down Riko's cheek; it's a moment before he realizes it's tears. He wipes it away furiously and coughs.

"You know what is selfish," Riko whispers, voice cracking. "more selfish than wanting to kill myself? Don't you think it's selfish to force someone to live on and suffer for every fucking second of their life just to ease yourself of survivor's guilt?"

"I never said I was a good person, Riko," says Kevin. "Yeah, I suppose. I want you to live. Even if you hate it. Even if you hate me. If that makes me selfish, then."

"Then you'll forgive my s-selfishness, too," Riko croaks, hiccuping slightly, before he reaches up with his other hand and cocks the gun, like they do in television. The _click_ echoes.

"I'll give you another reason not to."

"Oh?"

"You'd ruin your face."

"And...?"

"I like your face. It's... beautiful. They'd have to cover it for the funeral because your brains would be splattered everywhere."

"Ugh," snorts Riko, unwillingly. "We're not having sex, you know."

"I don't need to be fucking you to be able to tell you're pretty."

"Jesus," sighs Riko. "If you're so concerned about my face then-"

Ichirou would be appalled, he thinks, that all his knowledge of guns comes from television, so Riko prays this works in real life too and not just onscreen. He lowers the gun for a moment, without taking his eyes off Kevin, then jams it into his mouth.

The thinking, he assumes, is that firing this way only blows off the back of his head, not his face. So Kevin and all those delusional Raven fans can have one last look at his pretty face as he's lowered into the casket. The barrel is jarringly cold and Riko winces when it hits the roof of his mouth. The weight on his tongue feels strangely like— well, if Riko wasn't gagged by the gun he would have laughed, because it feels sort of like giving a blowjob. And a gun, he supposes, is quite like a cock; both of them shoot out something when you touch them the right way.

Kevin watches him for a moment, transfixed, then reaches up and tugs on Riko's wrist. The gun slips out of his mouth and Kevin replaces it with his lips. Briefly Riko wonders what the hell is happening but leans into the kiss all the same, instinctively opening his mouth under Kevin's and shivering when Kevin's teeth sink into his lower lip like he wants to devour him alive. Riko licks into Kevin's mouth, the way he likes it, and when Kevin pulls away he whines.

Riko's head hurts even more now, his heart hammering a dent into his chest.

(Kevin, he supposes. He works better than any psychoactive drug.)

"You taste like gun grease," he remarks, then looks down at the gun in Riko's lap again.

"You won't do it," he insists.

"Watch me," hisses Riko, breathing heavily, hands shaking.

"You won't. Because you aren't just selfish, you're a coward."

"Does this look like a coward to you?" gasps Riko, who's given up trying to steady his breathing.

"Show me your arms."

"What?"

"Show me."

Kevin snatches his left wrist and yanks his sleeve up; Riko's shaking so hard he barely flinches.

"You had all these chances," whispers Kevin, running his fingers up and down his arm, some old cuts, most new. Some are even still scabs. "If you were serious about this, you wouldn't have failed this many times. You're smarter than that."

"Then," wonders Riko, "then... you're right. I am... a coward, aren't I? Can't even commit to killing myself. Breaking your hand was also me being a fucking coward, wasn't it? Because I got scared that you were better than me."

"But... you aren't," he adds, as an afterthought. "You somehow managed to grow a spine, ran your ass out of Castle Evermore after I tried to ruin you. If I'm such a coward," rasps Riko, voice hardening into a hiss. His hands are shaking again, so he raises the gun again, flips it so that he's holding the barrel, and presses the handle into Kevin's palm.

"You do it."

"...Riko."

He wraps his fingers around Kevin's wrist and wrenches his hand up, up till the gun is staring him in the face. Drops his head so that his forehead hits the muzzle (and he doesn't have to look at Kevin's face).

"Do it," Riko goads desperately, "I know you fucking want to, I know you must hate me for everything I've done to you—"

"I'd be lying," interrupts Kevin quietly, "if I said I've never thought about it."

"The night after the first home game we lost," Kevin continues, voice barely a whisper. "We were... I think... eighteen, you must have been seventeen, and I had to drag you out of the court because you couldn't walk after the Master was finished with us. And you were bleeding so much, and bruised everywhere, and I- and I wondered," he admits, "I was watching you sleep that night— well, I think you were more in a coma than asleep, and I thought..." he trails off, then shakes his head violently. 

"Go on," goads Riko, in mock interest. "What did you do?"

"Nothing" mumbles Kevin. Forget it-"

"You tried to smother me with a pillow," interrupts Riko, a small, inexplicable smile tugging up the corner of his mouth. "I remember. I wasn't asleep. I wondered if you were going to go through with it."

Kevin fixes him with an incredulous stare."Would you have let me?"

"I didn't want your pity. Still don't."

"What makes you think I was trying to kill you out of mercy?"

"Because— and this is how I know you aren't going to pull that trigger— you are a _good_ person."

Kevin laughs, suddenly, startling Riko. He fingers the trigger guard. "You are the only person in the world who could say that like an insult."

"Maybe it is. You and your damn heart of gold... quality of mercy and all that bullshit. You'd never be a killer, not even if I asked you to."

"But you would?" challenges Kevin.

Riko wraps his hands around the barrel of the gun and yanks it out of Kevin's hands, spinning it and aiming at Kevin's head in one motion.

"Shall we see?" he whispers, not trusting his own voice. He squints through a blur of tears down the barrel at Kevin's face and wonders if he would still be looking at Riko like that with his brains blown out onto the wall behind the couch.

"Do it," whispers Kevin, echoing Riko. "You'd be doing us both a favor."

"I'll shoot myself after you."

"Then we might see each other again."

"That's nice, isn't it?" whispers Riko hoarsely, sliding his finger down the trigger. His arm is starting to ache from holding up the gun. He looks down the barrel, at Kevin's face; his finger twitches, putting the slightest amount of pressure on the trigger. It doesn't go off. Riko contemplates pressing harder.

_I could end this, _he thinks in wonder. _Like a suicide pact._

(Except more like a murder-suicide, but there's still something so awfully romantic about it, so terribly gorgeous about the idea of Riko dead in Kevin's arms, both with a bullet through their head. There's a vase of wilting roses in the bedroom, one of Kevin's jokes last Valentine's day, he could tuck one blood-red bloom between his teeth before shooting.)

(Riko supposes it would be quite funny if the Master heard that his prize Raven had shot himself and taken Kevin with him using a gun gifted to them by his nephew.)

"Why did..." wonders Riko, trailing off. "Why did... Ichirou... why would he give me a gun, if he knew...?"

"Hm?" Kevin cocks his head slightly, forehead still resting on the gun.

"Oh, nothing, just... Ichirou mentioned that the Master told him I'm good with knives. The implication being, well. That he knows I'm probably the last person in the world he should be giving a gun to."

"Maybe," says Kevin carefully (and Riko can tell he's breathing shallowly, like if he moves too much Riko will fire), "It was a test? Or like a self-proving experiment. If you're useful to him, you'll keep the gun safe. If you're too..."

"At risk of shooting myself," finishes Riko, "then I'll conveniently dispose of myself and he doesn't have to deal with a lunatic who tries to slit his wrists whenever anything goes slightly wrong."

"He also knows you broke my hand. And I live with you."

"So you're collateral damage," says Riko harshly, not meaning it. He tightens his grip on the gun; Kevin winces slightly where the muzzle digs into his forehead.

"Maybe," suggests Kevin sarcastically, "He's hoping that you _don't_ go off the rails."

"Or he's even more stupid than I thought. He handed me a gun. Me. A _gun_. I could have shot him before he left. Kevin, I am _damaged goods,_" Riko says, nearly choking on the words. "And if he gave me a gun, knowing that, then he's counting on me— _expecting me— _to shoot myself and finish the job. You know they were planning on framing my death as a suicide? The Master said that, when I woke up in another goddamn hospital bed, said not to feel sorry for myself because I would have had the world crying for me if only I'd managed to kill myself. He knew. Ichirou knows. It's a given, isn't it? They all think so. That I'm going to die at my own hand."

"You could prove them wrong," suggests Kevin. "If not for me, or for yourself."

Now _that's _a novel concept. Laughable, but novel. Riko entertains it for a minute.

"Keep on living to spite the Master," muses Riko. 

(Riko, alive despite everything. And working for the main branch. Acknowledged by his father's family. The Master probably loses sleep over it at night.)

"Keep on living to spite my brother, who tried to shoot me and now expects me to finish the job for him," continues Riko.

(Ichirou Moriyama, who never so much as acknowledged he ever had a brother before trying to shoot him in the head. Objectively Riko should hate him for it, but to be honest- Riko can understand. Four people have ever seriously attempted to kill Riko Moriyama. The first was Riko Moriyama. )

Riko drops the gun, letting it clatter to the floor. He jumps slightly at the noise; so does Kevin.

"Keep on living to spite you," he whispers, nodding towards Kevin, "since I'm sure you've wanted me dead for a long time." Kevin snorts slightly.

_(Oh, Kevin. You should have snuffed me out with that pillow when you had the chance.)_

"Keep on living to spite myself, the bastard who tried to kill me so many times," Riko adds, and this time Kevin really laughs, the sound lifting a weight off Riko's chest (and Riko thinks, _thank God I didn't shoot, if only to hear that laugh another time_).

***

"Why do they say ‘taking your own life'," wonders Riko, curled up in Kevin's arms on the couch watching some mindless sitcom on the television. The gun's tucked safely in Kevin's bedside drawer, magazine ejected. "Who are you taking it from? Who owns your life?"

"Me," mumbles Kevin sleepily against the top of Riko's head. "Your life is mine. If you ever try to take it again you have to ask me for permission first."

"I'm okay with that," decides Riko, then gives up trying to stay awake and lets his eyelids fall closed.

**Author's Note:**

> yea i forgot riko had his arm broken by andrew so thats... not a thing in this. also this nearly became a pwp gunplay kink fic, you can probably tell where, because as sugamins once said in House of Cards,
> 
> “Guns are such phallic things. Hard barrels, triggers that pump bullets. Didn’t you ever think about how a gun is really just like a cock?"
> 
> title is a lyric from Chicago Is So Two Years Ago by Fall Out Boy. come bother me on twitter @castlevermore


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